As architects and architectural designers, a balanced relationship between client and architect needs to be addressed. Being a fresh graduate and only being part of the work force for collectively under a year, I’ve begun to understand that these relationships must be tailored per architect, firm, client, project, etc., but that was the extent of my knowledge to this point. After reading MONU’s issue #28 “Client-shaped Urbanism”, it begun to open my eyes to how both a client or architect may feel they are being mistreated in certain situations and projects. Obviously, clients and architects mutually want a smooth relationship but understanding perspective, balance, and experience can affect the connection between the two.

In university, we are often told to put ourselves in the shoes of the user when thinking of our projects. That empathy begins to that help further our designs, so understanding perspective is highly important. In the first article, “Sympathy for the Devil” was striking and enjoyable to read for fact that it was written in a different perspective that wasn’t directly architecture, but still very relatable. It was intriguing because it made the reader not only wear the “devil’s” shoes but feel insecure about the situation unfolding, which ended up being the clients experience redefined. It really starts off the issue with a perspective, we as architects, have most likely not experienced firsthand and introduces the thoughts of a client. Other articles in this issue, give more insight of what a client hopes to expect for their experiences and what not, for example the article “What Client Wants”.

MONU's 28th Issue, "Client-shaped Urbanism"

The interviews are what I found the most informative for myself, mainly because they were raw discussions of what they believe is happening to our industry without all the unnecessary fluff. Their experiences with different clients, project managers, competitions, etc., plus their opinions on what is happening with our relationships and on how both architects and clients can improve themselves for future collaborations is insightful. The “Behind the Scenes: A Conversation with my Client” was a relief from some of other articles negativity of why we fail to have a balanced relationship between client and architect. This conversation expands on the success of a healthy client-architect relationship and what they look for in each other. Djamel Aït-Aïssa and Beatriz Ramo both agreed that “trust is essential”, but correspondingly must have an equivalent respect for each other and the project requirements/intentions. Which is why they have successful projects and relationship.

Not everyone can find a perfect client though and “Expectation and Reality” begins to address the humor of the reality of our career. These comic strips were a great comical relief in the issue. Even being a newbie to the workforce of the architecture world, I can already relate to some of these comics. I even passed along the magazine to show these images to a couple of my peers and co-workers to give them a good chuckle. Even the reality of the concept sketch to construction sequence of sketches is too relatable; especially coming out of college with bright hopeful eyes for design opportunities and being dragged back down to the reality for normal projects with low budgets.

Speaking of university again, quite a few articles brought up the architecture education and how to maybe improve our understanding of clients. Like I mentioned earlier, and Nicholas Pajerski mentioned in the article “Architecture After the Client: Speculating on a Human Centered Architectural Pedagogy” as well, we are trained more to focus on the user and how they experience the space and less on the client specifically. These two people may overlap or could have nothing to do with each other, so giving more experience on that could be more thought-provoking for design concepts. Alejandro Zaera-Polo mentions in the article “Project Managers and the End of the Dominatrix Architect” that they think they maybe we should introduce more client managing classes in universities, which I think having the option is actually an interesting thought. To be exposed a little more to the reality and what to look out for, would be a little more helpful for some students. At the same time, Stefan Paeleman mentioned in “Not all about Beauty” had an opposing view, that university is the time to “have a certain freedom, and maybe to dream a little more” and that it could “deprive” students from creativity. In one way I agree with this statement, but in another way, it could force students to be more collaborative and a find an alternative method to be creative, like the idea of “Human Centered Architectural Pedagogy” introduced by Pajerski. These discussions of education over multiple articles is something I would like to see more of in the future as it will shape how to alter our profession for the better.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed reading MONU’s issue, “Client-shaped Urbanism”. This issue really captured the right amount of views on how clients shape our designs (for the good and the bad) and how architects can do better with our relationships with the clients through perspective, balance, and experience. This an issue that I would recommend to both students and architects/architectural designers, as it really exposes multiple views of clients in architecture to further our understanding of one another.